Meagan Good
Meagan Good is an actor, born 1981.
Meagan Good has been on screen since she was a child, with a bit part in Friday (1995) as a child, and she got her first real notices as Cisely in Eve's Bayou (1997). Kids on Nickelodeon knew her next, as Nina on Cousin Skeeter between 1998 and 2001. Almost nobody manages that transition without a long gap. She did not have one.
The 2000s are her decade. Deliver Us from Eva (2003), Roll Bounce (2005), Stomp the Yard (2007) and You Got Served put her at the centre of a run of Black-led studio comedies and dance pictures that were enormously popular and almost entirely ignored by critics at the time. Then Think Like a Man and its sequel did it again with an ensemble. What she brings to those films is timing and a very fast register change: she can go from teasing to hurt inside a line, which is why she is often the only person in the frame who seems to be reacting rather than waiting.
The rest of the CV is a working actor's, which means a lot of horror that did not deserve her: The Unborn, One Missed Call, Saw V, The Intruder. The exceptions are worth seeking out, particularly Kara in Brick, where she is a very good fit for Rian Johnson's stylised dialogue. Lately the parts have improved: Camille in Harlem, and the adult Darla in the Shazam! films.
Movies (34)
- Shazam! (2019)
- Friday (1995)
- Shazam! Fury of the Gods (2023)
- Monster Hunter (2020)
- D.E.B.S. (2005)
- Saw V (2008)
- The Unborn (2009)
- Day Shift (2022)
- Stomp the Yard (2007)
- Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (2013)
- The Intruder (2019)
- Tyler Perry's Divorce in the Black (2024)
- Biker Boyz (2003)
- Brick (2006)
- The Love Guru (2008)
- Think Like a Man (2012)
- One Missed Call (2008)
- Roll Bounce (2005)
- Think Like a Man Too (2014)
- You Got Served (2004)
- Waist Deep (2006)
- Dungeons & Dragons: The Book of Vile Darkness (2012)
- Venom (2005)
- Jumping the Broom (2011)
- Eve's Bayou (1997)
- Girl Dad (2026)
- 3 Strikes (2000)
- Good Hair (2009)
- The Cookout (2004)
- Deliver Us from Eva (2003)
TV (16)
- Californication (2007)
- My Wife and Kids (2001)
- Prodigal Son (2019)
- Number One on the Call Sheet (2025)
- All of Us (2003)
- The Parent 'Hood (1995)
- Harlem (2021)
- Kevin Hill (2004)
- Minority Report (2015)
- The Jersey (1999)
- Raising Dad (2001)
- Cousin Skeeter (1998)
- Deception (2013)
- On Our Own (1994)
- Gabriel's Fire (1990)
- 106 & Park (2000)
Books (1)
Where to start with Meagan Good
Nothing else here beats Eve's Bayou. She was a teenager and she is playing jealousy, guilt and adolescence at once in a film that treats all three seriously, and it is still the strongest thing on her CV.
After that, split by mood. For the comedies that made her a star, Deliver Us from Eva is the sharpest and Think Like a Man is the most likeable; Stomp the Yard is the crowd-pleaser and Roll Bounce holds up better than its reputation. For the actor rather than the persona, Brick is a small part in a strange film and she is completely at home in it. Harlem is the recent series that finally gives her a lead written with some interiority. The horror thrillers can wait, and Shazam! is the one your kids will pick.